SV looks at access road issue

SPRING VALLEY — Although it’s been months since Spring Valley voted in a new mayor, small speed bumps within the transition sometimes still appear.

At Tuesday’s council meeting, Scott Shearer of Shearer Tree Service gave a brief explanation to the council that he was not backing out of the tree clearing project for the construction of an access road near the city’s west sewer interceptor.

Shearer explained he had bid on the project under previous Mayor Cliff Banks. The project bid was $19,000 for the clearing of a road, he said.

The issue is,the road project he bid on and the project that is in the current planning stages are two different scopes of work.

“I would like to do the $19,000 job that I bid on if I could be allowed to,” he said. “But at this point according to (City Engineer) Larry Good, he doesn’t want the road where it was going to be.”

Shearer went on to say he would still be interested in bidding on the current plans of the project.

“I actually would love to do the job,” he said. “But what I bid on and what (Good) wants are two different scopes of work. I just wanted you to hear it from me. That’s where we stand and where we are at.”

Alderman Dan McFadden said he had talked with Shearer about the project between the time of the original bid to now and discovered that Shearer’s tree clearing plans didn’t match what the current council had been discussing.

Good said he was not aware of the plans under the previous mayor, and only knew of the bid price Shearer had quoted.

The council all agreed it was not Shearer’s fault the terms of the work were misunderstood. They later agreed to have Good advertise new bids for the tree clearing portion of the access road project.

In October, the city agreed to purchase an easement agreement from Hawkeye Land Co. at the cost of $50,000 to gain rights to the land near the west sewer interceptor to build an access road.

On Tuesday, McFadden asked if the city had the permit to start the project.

City Clerk Becky Hansen confirmed the payment had been sent on Oct. 31, and Good and City Attorney Jim Andreoni had not yet received the easement agreement documentation.